Chapman, as a black woman with incredible musical gifts, would have been expected to envelop herself in this movement as a hip hop artist. Despite her desire for social change and experience with injustice leveled against Black people in America, she created her music in a style that contrasted against the expectation for a Black artist.

Tracy Chapman is filled with many of the same messages as the hip-hop songs of the day, that call out the reality of racism and injustice in America. Growing up in a Black neighborhood in Cleveland, Chapman witnessed first hand the unjust realities of life as a Black American and brought these progessive themes into her music.

In her song “Across the Lines,” Chapman depicts in no uncertain terms the tensions that existed between the different races in America. She sings, “Little black girl gets assaulted/Ain’t no reason why/Newspaper prints the story/And racist tempers fly/Next day it starts a riot.”

These words bring to life a horrific image of the violence leveled against Black people in America and the “c’est la vie” attitude that lets it continue unimpeded.

Chapman also addresses the rampant poverty that affects Black neighborhoods and families that seems inescapable in her song “Talkin’ Bout A Revolution.”